The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[lalaland]

I just got flogged!!!!

Booster wasn't backing away, and so I advanced and the little &$(@# flogged my ankle. I'm yelling and Buster comes to the rescue, jumps on Booster and chases him away.
Next step is to get a stick and start working with that guy. Hes a good roo but not putting up with that. He's about 6 months old.

 

[TeaChick]

I most defiantly do! Actually my boyfriends parents make fun of me for canning and storing my food. Ultimately my aim is to hardly buy anything from grocery stores, but apparently that has become a weird concept these days and canning anything besides salsa is seen as eccentric :S

I KWYM. I lived in an area like that. It's like all the "innovations" in "farming" are amazing and wonderful and anyone who does things naturally is weird and backward or there's something wrong with them. The nicest thing I've ever been told (and I've gotten it from several ppl) is that their grandmother did things that way, and a very offhanded manner, and then they dismissed what I said.

 

[fosterson]

I just got flogged!!!!

Booster wasn't backing away, and so I advanced and the little &$(@# flogged my ankle. I'm yelling and Buster comes to the rescue, jumps on Booster and chases him away.
Next step is to get a stick and start working with that guy. Hes a good roo but not putting up with that. He's about 6 months old.

Give that boy a good smack!

 

[armorfirelady]

I'm wondering if I could build them a sun porch next fall from old windows.  SHould be a way to hinge the windows to form the roof....set it on haybales....presto a sun porch!  wouldn't have to do it if I was willing to shovel the whole run....laziness is a bad trait.

My a frame I made as a shade spot for summer was moved to veggie garden. I put plastic on the long sides. It's kept snow and rain out and the leaves under it are a favorite spot to scratch for goodies under them. I like multipurpose items. . I put plastic on the sides of the front porch (it's what I put over pop door to keep wx out) and its a covered walkway now for them.


Chaos if I get a fart egg I break it in the coop. They like raw eggs but scrambled ones are their fav . I've never had them eat their own eggs

 

[aaggjg]

Okay so I need to know if I'm being paranoid or justified with my new found worry for my Silkie Pia. She didnt come out this morning I checked and she was in the nest box. Well she just came out and sat on the ground in a heap like a broody would. So maybe she's going broody..... She is a silkie afterall!! I checked the next box and there was a soft shelled egg. I picked Pia up felt her belly (soft) and she was kinda whimpering.... So I put her in the sun to warm up. She is sun bathing and looking around but hasn't gotten up. Hmmmmm. Hope I'm just being paranoid but this isn't usual for her. She doesn't get up if I walk over, she doesn't get up when other hens come by. Yeah she's limping or stumbling.

 

[TeaChick]

This may be a silly question, but how exactly do you crush egg shells to feed back to the chickens? Mine aren't laying yet, but I get eggs from someone else who has chickens (not from the store). I'm hoping they start laying soon! They'll be 20 weeks old on Monday.

I've been taking the shells and trying to scrape off the inside membrane under running water, then letting them dry. Then I just crush them with my hands, and keep crushing them with my fingers until they're somewhere in between the size of watermelon seeds and bell pepper seeds. Then I just pour them in a pile on the dirt.

Is that OK? Or should I be crushing them finer?

I don't think that's a silly question. I didn't think of that at the time that someone told me to do it.
I figured I'd probably cut up my hands on them, so I tried a fork. That didn't get them as small as I wanted them (although it got them smaller than seeds that my chickens eat).
So, I used my blender and pulsed them until they were the grind I wanted.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

This may be a silly question, but how exactly do you crush egg shells to feed back to the chickens? Mine aren't laying yet, but I get eggs from someone else who has chickens (not from the store). I'm hoping they start laying soon! They'll be 20 weeks old on Monday.

I've been taking the shells and trying to scrape off the inside membrane under running water, then letting them dry. Then I just crush them with my hands, and keep crushing them with my fingers until they're somewhere in between the size of watermelon seeds and bell pepper seeds. Then I just pour them in a pile on the dirt.

Is that OK? Or should I be crushing them finer?

People recommend baking them until they start to smell different ... and then crushing them. I gather the baking does two things: 1) it changes the smell of the egg shell so it doesn't cause chickens to associate yummy broken egg supplements with the shells on the eggs they've just laid; 2) it helps sanitize the egg shell just in case. I also find that the baked egg shells crush pretty well.

I collect the egg shells I use here into a big stainless steel bowl (I don't even bother rinsing them). When the bowl is full I pop it into the oven while I'm preheating the oven for something else. When the egg shells start to "smell," I take them out, cool them, crush them using various methods but ending with a meat tenderizer wooden hammer thing, and then dump them in the oyster shell feeder out with the flock. I aim for a particle size that is similar to the oyster shell calcium supplement (not too small).

 

[lalaland]

Aoxa, finally got some comb pictures for the "who will lay first" guessing game. Apologies for the poor pics>

1. Angelina, (icelandic)she is actually redder than you can see in the pic. She is icelandic, has a scalped comb, meaning, sliced off somehow as a chick, and she is blind in one eye. Also has a stunted wing.


here she is a few weeks ago:


amelia is a crested cream legbar:


and here she is with her flockmate, Seaquist (think she is leghornx ameracuana):





Here is coco chanel, she hasn't even pinked up at all:


and here is Edie:


I am supposed to have two ameracaunas and so that must be Edie and Coco Chanel.

And the three sulmtaler pullets, one is missing in the photo:



So, these are 8 or the 9 pullets who are now six months old and are still not laying!

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I KWYM. I lived in an area like that. It's like all the "innovations" in "farming" are amazing and wonderful and anyone who does things naturally is weird and backward or there's something wrong with them. The nicest thing I've ever been told (and I've gotten it from several ppl) is that their grandmother did things that way, and a very offhanded manner, and then they dismissed what I said.

This notion runs pretty deep ... all the "modernization" of farming and food. I believe it started with great intentions, but the result is that producing your own food began to be seen as dirty and dangerous.

 

[lalaland]

Okay so I need to know if I'm being paranoid or justified with my new found worry for my Silkie Pia. She didnt come out this morning I checked and she was in the nest box. Well she just came out and sat on the ground in a heap like a broody would. So maybe she's going broody..... She is a silkie afterall!! I checked the next box and there was a soft shelled egg. I picked Pia up felt her belly (soft) and she was kinda whimpering.... So I put her in the sun to warm up. She is sun bathing and looking around but hasn't gotten up. Hmmmmm. Hope I'm just being paranoid but this isn't usual for her. She doesn't get up if I walk over, she doesn't get up when other hens come by. Yeah she's limping or stumbling.

whimpering?
Have you had a chance to check her legs to see if she has injured something?

I have no experience with silkies, hopefully someone will chime in.
Keeping my fingers crossed for you and Pia.